About Me

Born in August 1887 in Awsworth Notts, to Henry and Sarah Lamin. Elder Sisters Catherine (Kate), Mary Esther and Sarah Anne(Annie) and Elder brother John (Jack).
Educated at Awsworth Board School, just outside Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England.
I served with honour in the 9th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment seeing front line action in Flanders and Northern Italy from the end of 1916 to January 1920.

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Link to The very first Posts

Helpful Hints

From 1st March 1918 the leap year in 2008 takes the synchronicity of the days and dates away. Decision: I will publish letters a day in advance so that the days of the week coincide, rather than the date.

"New" readers please note that the entries on each page are in reverse order, oldest at the bottom.

It doesn't work quite like a book. To make sense of the whole blog, take the link to the "First Posts", work from the bottom entry upwards and then take the "Newer posts" link at the bottom of each page for the next installment.

Link to The First Post. (New Readers)

Dear Jack I have received your paper's and was very pleased with them I am glad that you are both keeping well. as I am alright at present. I am pleased to hear that you are able to stay at home and that the army will not require you. I have had a letter from Ethel and she says that dad does not get much better. I am glad that you have an idea where abouts I am things are still quite I hope they remain so. We are not doing so bad for food out here it would be better if we got paid more regular we have only drawn ten lires in a month that is equal to five shillings in English money, (25p - 50 cents! BL) so I think we shall have a bit to our credit, we get plenty of fruit out here oranges and apples etc. It will be Willie's birthday this month 21th but I shall not be able to send him anything. We see some fine scenery out here we are quite close to the mountains some of these take about five hours to climb and they are not the highest. it is different to flanders being out here. I think Kate will try to get a day or two off to see you she told me in her last letter that she would like to pay you a visit. Write back as soon as possible I am always glad to get a letter.

11 comments:

Interesting, isn't it. To me Harry does not seem upbeat in the least - in fact he sounds depressed. He is wistful and he is lonely. I guess he is also bored. He certainly is desperate for any sense of home and family. Great to be able to see the envelopes too, Bill.

I have been following these letters on a regular basis and have been "holding my breath" each time I log on. We, of course, know when this terrible war ended, but his family had no pre-knowledge and the wait for the postman must have been almost unendurable.Thank you again for sharing this wonderful correspondence with us. Two amazing men - you and your grandad. And of course the courageous women in Harry's life.

each time i see a new RSS feed from your blog i am just hoping harry is still alive, i am so worried for him. this is a wonderful blog, i became to like harry so much - he's just a simple man in this huge war and he has to face such terrible things but he just takes it as it is. i think it just underlines the terrors of the war. thank you for sharing this. (i am from slovakia and i met this woman from britain at a conference who mentioned this blog, so i just had a look and it's really very good)

in case you would be interested who was the woman who mentioned your blog actually in her conference lecture, it was Ms. Odala, an American (sorry, there was another British lady and I mixed them up) information specialist, editor of Online magazine and the presentation can be found here: http://www.insource.cz/pdf/2008/ojala-marydee.pdf(slide No.25)just to show how information flows around this world today :-))

Hi from Italy,I read your blog because here I can read somethings about a war fight on my country, and read how it was it's very interesting.Just a note:

Harry was drawn 10 liras in a month, and that's was equal to 5 shillings in English 1918 money.As the actual rate, the real conversion itsn't 25p-50 cents, but - if we follow conversion table from ISTAT (italian statistic institute) at http://www.istat.it/prezzi/precon/rivalutazioni/val_moneta_2007.html - the 10 liras with the coefficent of the year 1918 (2560.7406), are equals to 25,607 liras of nowadays, and it would be say 13 Euros: nearly 10 Pounds.